The Americans for Disabilities Act of 1990 requires that any company providing inter-exchange telecommunications services must provide access to people with disabilities. This law requires that all telephone companies in the United States and its possessions must provide access to people with disabilities including those that are deaf, hard of hearing and speech impaired. All states are required to establish TRS (Telecommunications Relay Service) for these individuals. Essentially, TRS connects those who can hear and speak with those who can't via the telephone network.
Typically, a person who is deaf, hard of hearing or speech impaired accesses TRS with a device known as a TTY (Teletype Device) or TDD (Telecommunications Device for the Deaf). TTYs have a single or multiple line display with a keyboard and a modem to connect to a telephone line. Deaf individuals have communicated with each other over the telephone network since the late 1960s with these devices. Communications with these devices are accomplished by typing on a keyboard and have the words appear on the TTY displays of both parties. Some TTYs have a printer attached to allow printing of the conversation.
TRS centers bridge the gap between people with TTYs and those who use telephone sets (POTS) to communicate over the telephone network. A TRS center is a call center that has from ten to hundreds of relay operators, know as Communications Assistants (CA). These CAs each work at a terminal and receive calls from TTY users requesting to call a person with normal speech and hearing (voice person). The CA will place calls for these individuals and relay the exact conversation. In other words, the CA will read the text received from the TTY user to the voice person and type the response from the voice person back to the TTY user. A CA can also receive a call from a voice person who desires to call a person with a TTY.
TRS users access the TRS by dialing a toll free number or by dialing 711. Each state either has its own TRS center or contracts with a center in another state to handle TRS traffic. The cost to operate these centers are normally paid for by the companies providing inter-exchange telephone services in that state.
The present invention is a method and a system that will allow a person to access a TRS center via an Internet terminal on the World Wide Web instead of using a TTY device on the telephone network.